


Be here

by captainhurricane



Series: Be here now [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, still in their fourties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 08:33:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11309667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhurricane/pseuds/captainhurricane
Summary: Andrew doesn't dream.





	Be here

**Author's Note:**

> real life bad news end up being angsty fics, who knew.

Sometimes the mornings end up being the worst ones, even still, even years and years later. Andrew, after all, remembers and will always remember with devastating clarity each good and bad moment that he had witnessed.

Sometimes the mornings find him sitting up in their not-married bed, heart thumping, palms clammy, tears drying on his cheeks, breath coming in hysteric, short puffs. At least these days his nightmares seem less about image, less about touch and more just about revisiting bad memories, at least they appear with less frequency than before.

But whenever they do, Neil always wakes up soon after, voice croaky, hair messy.

“Drew?” Even that small whisper is enough to pull on Andrew’s pinched nerves. He draws in one long, shuddering breath.

“Alone,” he manages to say aloud. _Get the cats,_ he thinks.

Neil nods immediately and Andrew hates, hates, hates the flush of gratitude and hates that he hates it even years after that Neil understands. That Neil has always understood.

Neil stumbles off their bed in just boxers, hiding a yawn behind a raised hand and swiftly leaves the room with a squirming, sleepy cat under each arm.

Andrew squeezes his eyes closed. What was the nightmare about? What had it been about? Sometimes they had been about Drake. Scratch that, most of them had been about Drake when he had still lived with the Spears, when Drake had resurfaced and promptly been murdered.

Not all of them though. Drake is and has never been the only monster Andrew can feel chittering under his skin and his scars and his horrid, panicked breathing. There’re the doctors at Easthaven, there’re Riko’s cold eyes although Riko has been dead and buried forever (good fucking riddance), there’re the Foxes dismissing him, hating him but only in those dreams their words had cut Andrew deep enough for him to feel blood.

Sometimes, like now, like right now the dream had been, he’s sure of it now, had been about himself.

“I would never,” he manages through gritted teeth to the empty room. He doesn’t hear Neil. Knows that Neil knows it’s important to keep quiet. Maybe Neil has even managed to get back to sleep.

Andrew wraps his arms around himself, makes himself smaller. “I would never,” he says again. His eyes fucking hurt. Neil’s blue eyes stare at him from his dreams, from his memories. Sometimes they are surrounded by bruises (put by others), sometimes surrounded by bruises put there by Andrew.

Sometimes they are glazed over and dead.

Andrew shudders. “I would never. I would never. I would never.”

I hate him, he thinks. I hate him for making me feel.

It’s been a lie for years by now, only during moments like these it feels like the truth it once was.

Andrew swears through gritted teeth and climbs off the bed, skin itching, teeth clacking, kicks off his pyjama pants and his shirt and leaves himself in just his boxers. It’s cold outside, who gives a fuck, Andrew still pushes open the window panel and digs through the nightstand for cigarettes.

He burns through three in one go, the chilly night air the only thing making his teeth clatter by the time he finally stifles the last one on the window pane.

He draws another staggering, long breath. His skin still itches, like tiny bugs crawling through his nervous system, through his blood veins but by now he’s learned to differentiate between the need to be alone and the need to not be alone.

A twenty-something Andrew would scoff at this longing.

A fourty-something Andrew merely closes the window, stuffs his cigarettes away and pulls on Neil’s pyjama pants and one of Neil’s old fox-themed hoodies. As Neil is a giraffe and has longer arms, the sleeves are a little too long but Andrew doesn’t care.

He opens the door, moves from his deep darkness to the dim darkness where there’s actual life. King II meows instantly at him from the couch but doesn’t go crowding him instantly, instead flops down on its back on the floor. Neil is not on the couch. Andrew draws a shaky breath, watches as Fluffykins hops next to King II and playfully pats him with a paw.

Andrew’s grip on the doorhandle is tight enough to hurt, a fact that he only notices when Neil reappears to the doorway to their kitchen.

“Oh,” Neil says, quiet, gentle. He doesn’t ask.

Andrew lets the doorhandle go. He doesn’t say anything, merely crosses the space to Neil and lets his forehead drop to Neil’s bony shoulder. Neil’s heart thud-thud-thuds, steady like a machine. Or maybe it’s just Andrew’s own heart, instantly at ease at the sight of the one person who’s always seen past the monster and the shadows.

“Drew,” Neil whispers. Still so careful.

Andrew nods, carefully places his hands on Neil’s naked hips. Just keeps them there.

“Andrew,” Neil says again.

Andrew tries to scoff but it comes out as a sigh. “Yes, Neil.”

Then Neil’s arms carefully wrap themselves around him, carefully pull him closer until they are chest to chest. Neil’s fingers start to caress, Neil’s face pressing against Andrew’s shoulder.

Andrew sighs, again, longer, deeper. He shifts, just enough to be able to raise his head, to be able to press a kiss to Neil’s cheek, to the corner of his mouth and finally, finally to his parted lips.

“Drew,” Neil sighs and it’s as much as a question of if Andrew’s okay and a confirmation that Neil is here, Neil will always be here.

Andrew not-hates him for it.

“Staring,” he murmurs, not meeting Neil’s eyes.

“Always,” Neil murmurs back.


End file.
